Research On The Applicability Of New Standard College English

In the context of educational globalization, college English still plays large part in talent cultivation. College foreign language education as an important part of national higher learning is significant for knowledge acquisition, development of capability and synthetic quality of college students. College English as the main language of college foreign language education is the compulsory public basic course for most of non-English majors during undergraduation education, and plays an irreplaceable role in talent cultivation. New Standard College English, as one of the widely-used college English textbooks in China, has gained recognition of teacher and student. The study, by questionnaire and interview, made an in-depth survey and analysis about the applicability of the textbook in a local normal university of Shaanxi Province. With assistance of The Flesch Reading Ease Formula and vocabulary measurement, the study assessed readability of texts in the textbook and measured English vocabulary size of students respectively for data validity and reliability.The articles in the textbook are all adapted from British and American newspaper, magazine and books. The research data indicates that the textbook is demanding for students’ foreign language level on vocabulary and cultural knowledge. Drills and exercises as a whole tend to be somewhat difficulty with simplex question type and overmuch quantity of items, which exceeds the actual language ability of students, and has little corresponding effect for practice. The study finds that students over-depend on vocabulary handbook and rarely use other references. Then, as it is a complex procedure to apply for network course platform of the textbook, both teachers and students ignore this platform. College English course not only undertakes the duty of foreign language teaching, but exerts its more potential value of foreign language education. The textbook is rich in theme, which well satisfies the students’ desire for western culture, wide vision and critical thinking. By the comparison and analysis of the text themes, the reading materials about education, teaching and psychology are relatively lacked. Considering the objective needs of foreign language learners and teachers, some reading materials on language acquisition, learning strategy, etc should be properly added into the textbook, which can improve autonomous English learning efficiency and to some degree, bring helps and inspiration for language teaching.